EDITORIAL | Crack down on false information, ANC, and start with your own people

21,832.

20,999.

21,980.

21,606.

These figures, the daily Covid-19 infection numbers from Wednesday to Saturday, make sobering reading. The first wave’s 24-hour high (just less than 14,000) has been obliterated in the second wave. Infections are growing at an alarming rate.

We’ve gone from 1,073,887 infections on January 1 to 1,214,176 on Saturday. That’s 140,289 new confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the year.

Fatality figures, too, are climbing rapidly. On New Year’s Day, SA’s official death toll was 28,887. At the time of writing, this had climbed to 32,824. That’s 3,937 dead in less than two weeks. Moms, dads, children, sisters, brothers, grannies, grandpas, friends, classmates, soul mates, lovers. Gone.

The swells are growing and the waves are crashing. If the alarm bells weren’t ringing already — and they should have been — then they have got to be now. The sirens should be blaring; the klaxons sounding.

There is no longer a margin for error. In the past week, Sunday Times Daily and its sister publications have published stories about hospital beds running out, coffins running short and grave space fast filling up. There have been stories of open defiance of Covid-19 regulations, with even a minister being called out regarding a festive season wedding.

An ANC eThekwini councillor, Sifiso Mngadi, admitted sharing a voice note linking the virus to 5G, saying it is a myth, then saying he saw white people getting the vaccine at a busy petrol station near a major mall in Durban.

It will take a mammoth and combined effort if we are to avoid deaths and serious illness. 

And in the midst of this you have ANC and alliance leaders sharing misinformation about the virus and its vaccine. An ANC eThekwini councillor, Sifiso Mngadi, admitted sharing a voice note linking the virus to 5G, saying it is a myth, then saying he saw white people getting the vaccine at a busy petrol station near a major mall in Durban.

A few days later, Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi and ANC Gauteng secretary Jacob Khawe sowed doubts about the vaccine — the same one the alliance-led government is desperate to get to its health workers first and 70% of the population later.

Government cannot fumble the ball, let alone drop it. Authorities need to crack down on misinformation and disinformation, particularly about vaccines.

If the ANC is true to the commitment it made during its birthday celebrations at the weekend to make Covid-19 its top priority, then dealing sternly with its members immediately will be the natural first step.

A tsunami of death and infections is brewing at the harbour entrance, with decisive action needed now. Because if the government doesn’t act against its own first, it loses the right — and the public goodwill — to crack down on others. And we can afford neither scenario.